It was Maggie, having bumped herself upstairs on her bottom step by step on hearing the shouts and screams, and gathering enough from the scene in front of her to fear that Rodney was going to kill Sir Geoffrey, who - together with Florrie and the others - hauled Rodney sideways momentarily, and the brief respite was all the other man needed to leap up and make for the stairs.
Rodney flung the women off him as he struggled to his feet, reeling forward, his head spinning from the effect of Sir Geoffrey’s blows, and giving chase. He could never quite remember afterwards whether he had grabbed Sir Geoffrey before he started to fall, or whether it was his dive at the other man that started the impetus that took them both flying down the stairs in a tangle of limbs, accompanied by screams from the women above. He was aware of Sir Geoffrey’s flailing body along with his own panic as he tried to save himself from serious injury, but then he hit the floor, every bone jarring with the impact, and everything went black.
He could only have lost consciousness for a few seconds at the most, because the women - first Eileen, quite hysterical, then Florrie and Rebecca with their arms round a half-fainting Sarah, followed by Maggie hotching down on her well padded bottom, with Hilda making the rear, were still coming down the stairs in formation when he raised his head.
Sir Geoffrey was lying partly beneath him, and he knew at once the other man was dead from the impossible angle of his neck. He levered himself upright with the help of the banisters, shaking his head to clear the muzziness, and then moving to one side to try and shield Sarah from the sight of Sir Geoffrey’s grotesquely twisted body.
‘Here, let me have her.’ He took her from Florrie and Rebecca, lifting her off her feet into his arms as he looked down into her wan, bleached face rigid with shock, and then turning to the others said, ‘Someone call the police,’ before stumbling through to the drawing room, his own legs far from steady.
He placed her gently on one of the small sofas which dotted the room, and would have straightened, but Sarah clung to him, and so he knelt down at her side. And then, as her face lifted to his, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to kiss her, and Sarah, all her defences down, kissed him back.
Rodney hadn’t expected it; the impulse which had led him to press his lips to hers had been as compelling as drawing his next breath and just as impossible to resist. But as he felt her soft moist lips, salty from her tears, strain against his, he crushed her to him. Then it was her very defencelessness that enabled him to lift his head and say shakily, ‘He . . . he didn’t hurt you?’
Sarah knew what he meant, and although still unable to speak shook her head quickly as she began to shudder and shake with reaction.
No, he hadn’t hurt her, but he would have done, she thought with sick horror. She had seen the lascivious intent in his eyes as he had bent over her, his hands gripping the front of her nightdress and his breath foul on her face. And she had been helpless, so helpless . . .
‘Brandy.’
Rodney looked about him as though a brandy glass was going to materialize out of thin air, and Florrie and Maggie, who had followed him into the room while Rebecca phoned the police and Hilda took the weeping Eileen into the kitchen, moved forward from where they had frozen near the door when he had kissed Sarah.
‘It’ll be over here I should think, lad. Look, what’s this?’ Florrie lifted up the sloping top of what looked like a bureau to reveal a vast collection of glasses and bottles, and quickly poured hefty measures of brandy into two glasses, passing them both to Rodney as she said, ‘You get one down you an’ all, you look like you need it as much as her.’
He placed his own on the floor before lifting the other to Sarah’s lips, but she took it from him, managing a weak smile as she said, ‘It’s all right, I can do it. It was just - just the shock of seeing him leaning over me like that.’
They were all, each one of them, talking to hide their embarrassment, but with the kiss in mind it was Maggie, ever tactful, who said to Florrie, ‘Come on then, lass, we’ll make a cup of tea an’ leave these two alone for a bit,’ her voice heavy with meaning. Florrie shut her eyes for a brief second before opening them and nodding, and then she almost pushed Maggie out of the room before she could say anything more.
‘Better?’ Rodney took the empty brandy glass from Sarah as the door shut behind the two women, his voice tender, and she nodded without speaking, her eyes tight on his face.
‘Sarah -’ He paused, his face working, before he said, ‘When I saw him - I can’t tell you . . .’
She had never seen him like this, Sarah thought with a separate part of her brain which was still wondering if this was all a dream. His shirt had almost been torn off his back in the fight with Sir Geoffrey and it was hanging open either side of his chest, his dark body hair damp with sweat. He was as unlike the calm, controlled Dr Mallard of daylight hours as it was possible to imagine, and a hundred times more attractive.
His thumbs had begun a slow stroking motion over the palms of her hands, and he was still crouched down at the side of her, his brandy untouched. Rodney didn’t know if he was being unfair, but he did know he would never have another opportunity like this again, and the way she had clung to him, her response to his kiss, gave him the courage to go on. And there was only one way to say it.
‘I love you, Sarah, I think I’ve always loved you. In the beginning, even as a child, you were special, but since we’ve met again you’ve become my sun, moon and stars - everything. I eat you, breathe you, sleep you.’
She stared at him, her eyelids blinking rapidly. She had dreamt this moment a hundred, a thousand times, but it was far far sweeter than she could ever have envisaged.
‘I don’t know if you can ever see me as anything more than a friend, but if you need time, I can wait—’
His voice stopped as she lifted her hand and placed it on his lips. ‘Don’t you know? Don’t you know how much I love you?’ she asked softly.
He was absolutely still for one moment, and then he rose, lifting her again so that he could sit down with her on his lap and kiss her in the way he had wanted to do for weeks and weeks. She was soft and warm and yielding, intoxicating, as he had always known she would be for the man she loved, and it was him . . .
it was him
.
‘I’ve been waiting all my life for you, do you know that?’ He raised his head, seeing her closed eyes and her hair streaming over his arm, before she stirred and looked at him. ‘You’ll marry me? You’ll be my wife?’
‘Yes, yes.’
There would have to be explanations, she knew that, but they had all the time in the world to talk and clear up any misunderstandings. He loved her. He did, he did - he loved her. What else was important compared to that? He was hers, and she would never be alone again.
He loved her.
Chapter Twenty-three
‘You look bonny, lass, right bonny.’
Maggie’s voice was thick with emotion as her wrinkled hands adjusted Sarah’s veil, and Florrie nodded at the side of her as she echoed, ‘Right bonny.’
And Sarah, staring mistily back at her reflection in the tall ornate mirror in Lady Margaret’s own bedroom, which her friend had insisted she use for her wedding day, could hardly believe the fairy-tale girl in the glass was really her.
She had chosen the wedding dress of her dreams, an off-the-shoulder white satin gown that was sewn with tiny seed pearls and rosebuds of gold lace. Her glossy curls, caught high on the top of her head, were scattered with the same pearls and rosebuds as the dress, and her veil was a froth of several layers of chiffon, edged with gold. She wore no jewellery except Rodney’s engagement ring - a delicate star of glittering diamonds that had been on her hand for only three months.
It was Rebecca, seated on Lady Margaret’s bed with a wide-eyed Lucy-Ann in her arms, who remarked on this very fact as she said, ‘I can understand why he was so impatient, Sarah. I’ve never seen such a beautiful bride.’
‘Go on with you.’ Sarah flapped her hand at Rebecca as she turned, her eyes bright, and then said, ‘You look pretty good yourself if it comes to that.’
As matron of honour and Sarah’s only bridesmaid, Rebecca was dressed in a dark gold satin that went well with her brown hair and eyes, and the two women had had great fun in designing a matching dress and bonnet for little Lucy-Ann.
But Sarah knew, as she turned back to the mirror and again gazed wonderingly at the ethereal vision looking back at her, that she would have looked beautiful to Rodney whatever she wore. He never tired of telling her, over and over again, that she was the most beautiful woman in the world and how much he loved her, and any doubts she may have had with regard to his relationship with Vanessa had long since gone.
He had been so furious, the day after Sir Geoffrey’s attack, when she had told him about the incident in the tearooms with Richard’s wife, and what Vanessa had said. In fact she was sure, but for the fact that Richard had told them Vanessa was away on the continent somewhere with Lord Simmons and a party of his friends, that Rodney wouldn’t have been able to keep his hands off his beautiful sister-in-law’s throat!
But she hadn’t cared about Vanessa’s lies and manipulative mischief-making, not since that first kiss when she had been lying in his arms on the sofa in Lady Harris’s drawing room. It had told her all she ever wanted to know . . .
‘We’ll wait downstairs with Lady Margaret and Rodney’s uncle now you’re nearly ready, lass. Rebecca can fiddle some more with this veil.’
As Maggie spoke, Florrie took Lucy-Ann, who immediately smiled up into Florrie’s long ugly face with a toothless grin to which Florrie responded with a tender smile that was lovely to see.
‘She’s very good with Lucy-Ann.’ Rebecca smiled at Sarah as she slid off the bed and walked over to her, as the door closed behind the two old women. ‘Who would have thought the Mother Shawe of our childhood would be so besotted with one small bairn?’ she added, as she fluffed out the clouds of white chiffon with deft hands.
‘Who indeed.’ Sarah smiled back at her in the mirror, her eyes soft as she gazed at this friend of hers who had endured so much, and who had at last come into a safe tranquil harbour. ‘But who wouldn’t be; she has to be the most gorgeous baby in all the world, Rebecca.’
‘You won’t get any argument from me.’ And then, as the bell rang downstairs, and Lady Margaret’s voice could be heard calling, ‘Sarah, Sarah,’ Rebecca said, ‘Looks like the cars are here. This is it then.’
The two girls looked at each other for a moment, the one, small and brown-haired and dressed in gold, the other a vision in clouds of white, and suddenly the years fell away and they were two children again, the love they had felt for each other when it was the two of them against the world clear in their eyes. Careless of her finery Sarah pulled Rebecca to her, and the two exchanged a long hug before Rebecca said, her voice choked, ‘Come on, come on you, you’ll have us both blubbing and there’s you all done up like a dog’s dinner.’
‘We’ve had some good times, haven’t we, Rebecca?’
‘Aye, we have, and we’ll have some more an’ all.’
‘I do love you, you know.’
‘Aye, and I love you, you daft thing.’
Rodney’s uncle, who was giving Sarah away, was waiting in the hall with Lady Margaret as Sarah descended the stairs with Rebecca behind her holding the train of her dress, and as she reached the hall he moved forward, taking her hand as he said, ‘He won’t be able to take his eyes off you, my dear. You look quite exquisite. Doesn’t she, Margaret?’
‘Wonderful.’ Lady Margaret’s eyes were moist as she repeated, ‘Wonderful,’ before she turned to Rebecca and said, ‘Come on then, the others are already in the car so we’d better join them. You are supposed to get to the church before the bride.’
Once they were alone in the hall, as they waited for the first car to drive off, Henry Mallard looked down at her again as he said, ‘I’ve never seen Rodney so happy as he has been these last three months, Sarah. He adores you; you know that, don’t you?’
Sarah nodded, too full at that moment to speak. She was lucky, she was so so lucky.
‘Mind you, we all do. I can’t believe we’ve only known you a few months, it seems as though you have always been a part of the family.’
She had grown to like and respect this man and his wife who had taken her to their hearts since she had first been introduced to them, and now she found her voice, dimpling up at him as she smiled and said, ‘Thanks - Dad,’ in teasing recognition of the duty he was about to perform.